Publish in an Elsevier journal. The process step by step.

Promote your work

Think of search engine optimization for your article, promoting your article through (social) media, and how to share your article. Visit Sharing your article for detailed information about the versions you can use.

Last but not least, learn how to monitor your article's impact. Article level metrics offers more insight in citation and usage alerting.

Quick Guide

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Proofing and licensing

Congratulations! Your article has been accepted and there are a few more things to consider in order to get your work published. Elsevier will do everything it can to have your article published as quickly and accurately as possible.

Articles in press

Accepted articles will be published online on ScienceDirect as an article in press and assigned an issue at a later date. You can track your article and citations throughout this process.

Proofing

Accurate proofreading and clear marking of corrections are essential for the production of a quality article. As soon as your article has been typeset, you will receive an email either with a link to your article on our online proofing system or with a PDF attachment.

Online proofing: For more information about making corrections online, visit here.

Returning PDF attachment via email: It is important to ensure that all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication. Use the guide How to annotate PDFs to learn how to mark up changes in the PDF proof.

Journal Publishing Agreement

You will be asked to complete this during the time between your article's acceptance and its final version.

Open access and licensing

If you made the choice to publish open access, a number of different Creative Commons licenses will be available to select from. Details are explained in your journal's Guide for Authors which you can find on the journal homepage. More on open access.

Offprints

PDF e-offprints will be e-mailed within 24 hours of an article appearing online on ScienceDirect. If printed offprints are ordered instead of e-offprints, these will be dispatched within 6-8 weeks of issue publication. You can check the dispatch date using the track your article facility. Please note that delivery times depend on the destination.

Article sharing

You are so close to publication, you might be asked to share versions of your article. Visit Sharing your article for detailed information about the versions you may use.

Find the Submit Your Paper link on the journal's homepage. You will be prompted to log into EES.

In EES new users need to click the Register new account link.

Once you are logged into EES, you will be guided stepwise through the submission process.

EES automatically converts source files to a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process.

After approving the PDF you will receive an e-mail with a reference number that you can use to check the status of your paper in EES.

There are many benefits to registering with EES, including increased review and publication speed, article tracking and receiving e-mail alerts.

For journals not using the Elsevier Editorial System (EES)For journals not using EES submission through e-mail or submission of a disk or printed copy will be accepted. Please see your journal's individual Guide for Authors on the journal homepage for further details.

After submitting a paper it will be peer-reviewedReviewers, acknowledged experts in their fields, are appointed by the journal editor. Peer review has two key functions:

To act as a filter and determine the validity, significance and originality of the work to ensure only good research is published.

To improve the quality of research submitted for publication by giving reviewers the opportunity to suggest improvements.

Download our 'Get Published' quick guide with a one page overview on how to review. This will give useful insight in how
reviewers look at your paper.

Article Transfer Service
Several Elsevier journals operate a complimentary Article Transfer Service. The editor will offer this service to you if they feel your paper is of better fit in another Elsevier journal. Your submission will be transferred to another journal upon your approval. More on Article Transfer Service…

We also have over 1600 established journals with open access options. After acceptance you can then choose to either publish under the subscription model or open access.

Elsevier has established agreements with funding bodies.This ensures authors can comply with funding body open access requirements and may also be reimbursed for their publication fees. Elsevier has established agreements with funding bodies including the NIH, Wellcome Trust and UK Research Councils.

Prepare your paper

Match your abstract to a journal

Search for a journal by name

or

Search for a Journal

Prepare your paper for submission

Before you beginRead your journal's Guide for Authors. It contains requirements specifically for the journal you want to submit to.You need to consider topics in advance related to ethical requirements, open access options, copyright and funding body agreements relevant for that journal. This guide can be found on the journal's homepage.

Additional resources

Understand the Publishing process
More general background information about the publishing process can be found in the Understanding the publishing process guide. It covers topics such as using EES, Authors' Rights, Ethics & Plagiarism, the Impact Factor and other so-called bibliometric indicators

Online trainingWatch short and long videos to educate yourself on the Publishing process. Visit our Early career resources area and chose any topic related to funding, writing, reviewing and publishing.

illustration services offer you world-class artistic support for your professional research and images. You can easily upload your drafted illustrations, sketches, or just an idea, and we will send you a free time and cost proposal within 24 business hours. Following acceptance and payment, the illustration will be delivered within a couple of days. Illustrations are offered in four categories: Medical, Technical, Scientific, and Graphs, Charts and Tables.

Find a journal

Match your abstract to a journal

Search for a journal by name

or

Search for a Journal

Finding the right journal

Publishing in an
Elsevier journal starts with finding the right journal for your paper. You can find
journals in different ways but here are some suggestions:

Matching your
abstract to a journalYou don't know
which journal is best suitable for your article? By clicking the
'Start matching' button you will find in just a few seconds a list of journals
that matches best with your article by providing just the title and abstract.

Search journalsType the journal
name in the search field here above. Or enter some
keywords in the site wide search (at the top of the page) and then filter by
journals. You can even narrow down further by filtering on subject areas.

Browse all journals View Elsevier journals alphabetically, by editor or by subject online, reviewers to referee and editors to manage the peer-reviewprocess online.

Search journals by keywords Type a journal name or keywords into the site search (at the top of this page) and use the 'product type' filter to narrow the results to only journals. Subsequent filtering on subject area will narrow down the number of results even more.

Search through articles Go to ScienceDirect and enter a few keywords that describe your paper and review the found articles. This way you can identifythe Elsevier journal that publish papers on your topic.

Important tips
before choosing a journal:

Read the aims and scope of the journal

Read or download Guide for Authors

Check if the journal is invitation-only as some journals will only accept articles after inviting the author

If you need to publish open access know that most Elsevier journals have open access options explained on the journal homepage

Submit your paper to only one journal at the time

Check the journal performance for the review and publication timelines